All about the next opponent: Interview with Frankfurt fan Cettina | OneFootball

After the loss to Ata­lan­ta, VfB Stutt­gart now faces ano­ther top match against Ein­tracht Frank­furt. Frank­furt fan Cet­ti­na tells us what’s going on with the SGE.

With the Red Stri­pe: After Ata­lan­ta BC, now Ein­tracht Frank­furt is coming to Stutt­gart, with a fan fri­end­ship con­nec­ting them to the Euro­pa League win­ner. How did this fri­end­ship come about?

Cet­ti­na: The fri­end­ship with Ata­lan­ta Ber­ga­mo has exis­ted for 24 years and actual­ly ori­gi­na­ted from ano­ther fri­end­ship, name­ly with the “Cra­zy Heads” from FC Wacker Inns­bruck. I doubt I’m the best per­son to dis­cuss ultra-rela­ted mat­ters, but what’s gene­ral­ly known is that Frank­furt fans made their way to Ber­ga­mo via pri­va­te fri­end­ships through Inns­bruck – spe­ci­fi­cal­ly to the NOMADI group. One of our ultra groups, Droogs 99, talks about a “for­t­u­na­te coin­ci­dence” on their home­page, as the Cra­zy Heads them­sel­ves didn’t have a direct con­nec­tion to NOMADI, but rather to the now-defunct BNA.

The offi­ci­al ver­si­on, as descri­bed in Ata­lan­ta Bergamo’s book, traces it back to 1999. On the second-to-last match­day in Serie B, some Ber­ga­mo fans met Frank­furt fans on their way to Vene­to to source mate­ri­als, which at that time were often only available in Ita­ly. As it goes with foot­ball fans, a few Frank­furt fans ended up in the stands and kept in touch via let­ters. Much time has pas­sed sin­ce then, and a remar­kab­le fri­end­ship has deve­lo­ped. The last fri­end­ly meet-up was in Decem­ber 2022, when I also tra­ve­led to Ber­ga­mo to attend the Tro­feo Bor­tol­li Cup. But the fri­end­ship extends well bey­ond what hap­pens on the field – think of 2020, when Ber­ga­mo was hit hard by COVID. Even then, Frank­furt fans sup­port­ed their fri­ends.

How satis­fied are peo­p­le in Frank­furt with the cur­rent sea­son?

It depends on who you ask! 😀 The anti-Topp­möl­ler fac­tion is cer­tain­ly not satis­fied, but most fans are. Espe­ci­al­ly com­pared to recent years when the sea­son star­ted with a string of snoo­ze-indu­cing 1–1 draws, we’re now see­ing exci­ting per­for­man­ces in both the Bun­des­li­ga and the DFB-Pokal. Ein­tracht is in third place in the league for good reason, and it’s just fun to watch the joy with which the team plays. Of cour­se, you can nit­pick and bring up the loss to Dort­mund, but I’ll lea­ve that to others. It’s hard to let go of years of forced pes­si­mism, but at the moment, there’s not much to com­plain about. In the Euro­pa League, it’s a bit dif­fe­rent; while we remain unbea­ten and have won every game except against Vik­to­ria Pil­sen, our per­for­mance has been less con­vin­cing – but that’s com­plai­ning at a high level.

Frank­furt has soli­di­fied its place at the top of the stan­dings; how likely is it that they’ll stay the­re by the season’s end?

If you watch an Ein­tracht Frank­furt game, you’ll even­tual­ly hear the chant “Only SGE will be the Ger­man cham­pi­on,” so that should ans­wer the ques­ti­on! Jokes asi­de, I’m fair­ly cer­tain it won’t con­ti­nue like this all sea­son, but I’d love to be pro­ven wrong. Howe­ver, I’ve been a Frank­furt fan long enough to know that no sea­son is free of minor cri­ses. The most important thing is that the team keeps play­ing like this and that you get the sen­se ever­yo­ne is giving their best.

I’d be thril­led if they qua­li­fy for Euro­pean com­pe­ti­ti­ons, whe­ther that’s the Cham­pi­ons League or the Euro­pa League doesn’t mat­ter to me. But I can say this: right now, we’re see­ing the best Ein­tracht in a long time. Last sea­son was a bit dull, and in pre­vious years, we often play­ed wit­hout a pro­per stri­ker, which wasn’t hel­pful. Now, with Mar­moush and Eki­ti­ké up front, it’s just so much fun to watch, and I’d love for the­se guys to be reward­ed this sea­son – ide­al­ly with the best league finish in club histo­ry, which curr­ent­ly stands at fifth place.

With Dahoud, Mar­moush, Grahl, and Ongue­ne, Frank­furt has four play­ers with past ties to VfB. How are the­se play­ers doing in Frank­furt?

There’s not much to say about Jérô­me Ongue­ne as he hasn’t play­ed with our pros yet, but the other play­ers all have fan­ta­stic qua­li­ties that fit our style well. Omar Mar­moush is argu­ab­ly the hot­test topic in Ger­man foot­ball right now, and he has tru­ly ear­ned it. When he moved from Wolfs­burg to the Main in 2023, I never expec­ted him to flou­rish in this role. Back then, Kolo Mua­ni was still in Frank­furt, but when he left for France, Mar­moush (by neces­si­ty) got Toppmöller’s trust, which pro­ved to be abso­lut­e­ly the right decis­i­on. It reminds me a bit of how Filip Kos­tić made his mark here after strugg­ling to shi­ne else­whe­re.

Mo Dahoud is also an incre­di­ble addi­ti­on to our mid­field. Wat­ching him train, you can see that he could quiet­ly beco­me a key play­er. Espe­ci­al­ly when Ellyes Shki­ri wasn’t per­forming well, Mo step­ped in imme­dia­te­ly, pro­vi­ding Ein­tracht with some­thing we didn’t have befo­re. The role Don­ny van de Beek was sup­po­sed to fill, Mo Dahoud has taken on suc­cessful­ly – even if he some­ti­mes gives me a heart attack by taking risks at the back. Jens Grahl is our third-choice goal­kee­per, brin­ging all the qua­li­ties you’d want in that role. Though he’s only play­ed twice, he’s done well, and we know we can rely on him. Our young kee­per Kaua San­tos also prai­ses Grahl’s expe­ri­ence and team spi­rit.

How would you descri­be Frankfurt’s style of play? What are its strengths and weak­ne­s­ses?

A clear strength of Ein­tracht Frank­furt is their attack. With Mar­moush and Eki­ti­ké, we have two play­ers who dri­ve toward the goal with gre­at inten­si­ty. As soon as they get the ball in the half-spaces, it often turns into a one-on-one situa­ti­on that favors Ein­tracht becau­se they’re tough to defend. Our pas­sing game lea­ding up to goals is also some­thing to admi­re. We’ve streng­the­ned our squad depth, so we have good repla­ce­ments for near­ly every posi­ti­on. Of cour­se, we have to give young play­ers time and not judge them too quick­ly, but just having talent that can get meaningful minu­tes and do well is a tre­men­dous gain.

Our defen­se is also solid, with Arthur Thea­te and Ras­mus Kris­ten­sen pro­vi­ding phy­si­cal sta­bi­li­ty sin­ce the sum­mer. Even when Kris­ten­sen was inju­red, play­ers like Brown and Coll­ins fil­led in admi­ra­b­ly. But we wouldn’t be Ein­tracht Frank­furt wit­hout some bumps. This sea­son, we still strugg­le against defen­si­ve oppon­ents. When a team cedes pos­ses­si­on, we some­ti­mes lack ide­as. The high match load is ano­ther chall­enge, and I’m sure Novem­ber will expo­se some vul­nerabi­li­ties. Asi­de from the Stutt­gart game, matches against Bre­men, Midt­jyl­land, and Hei­den­heim likely won’t be adven­tur­ous, so Ein­tracht will face some real tests.

Who is your Frank­furt play­er of the sea­son so far, and why is it Omar Mar­moush?

I don’t typi­cal­ly get atta­ched to indi­vi­du­al play­ers quick­ly, but Omar Mar­moush chan­ged that. The last play­er who made me feel this way was Ante Rebić. When Rodri­go Zala­zar went on loan to St. Pau­li in 2021, I noti­ced Mar­moush, who caught my eye imme­dia­te­ly, though that faded after his move to Stutt­gart. We don’t even need to talk about his time in Wolfs­burg, but I was thril­led when he joi­n­ed us. It just feels right with him here, and he repays the trust of fans and the coach with gre­at enthu­si­asm. Last sea­son, he loo­ked a bit out of place at first, but with 17 goals and 6 assists in 41 games, he sur­pri­sed me. This sea­son, he’s bro­ken Ein­tracht icon Antho­ny Yeboah’s record by scoring ten goals in his first nine Bun­des­li­ga games.

Stutt­gart vs. Frank­furt is one of the few remai­ning matchups bet­ween two gre­at tra­di­tio­nal clubs. How do Frank­furt fans view this encoun­ter? Is this matchup some­thing spe­cial for them, or just ano­ther game?

I can only speak for mys­elf and my cir­cle, but I would defi­ni­te­ly say it’s always some­thing spe­cial when we play against tra­di­tio­nal clubs. There’s not­hing bet­ter than stan­ding in the away sec­tion and fee­ling that real oppo­si­ti­on is the­re. The Neckar­sta­di­on has once again beco­me a kind of fort­ress, dif­fi­cult to con­quer both on and off the field, and of cour­se, that makes it way more enjoya­ble than stan­ding in dull Wolfs­burg. Natu­ral­ly, we all hope clubs like Schal­ke, Ham­burg, or Colo­gne make their way back up, and that Hof­fen­heim, Wolfs­burg, and, of cour­se, the con­s­truct from Leip­zig, final­ly fade into obscu­ri­ty. Until then, we’ll just have to keep cele­bra­ting the­se last big matchups as they deser­ve to be.

Final­ly: What’s your pre­dic­tion and fee­ling for the game?

It’s incre­di­bly dif­fi­cult for me to make a pre­dic­tion for this game. One could assu­me that Ein­tracht has a good chan­ce here, but I’m reluc­tant to stick my neck out too far. The cur­rent stan­dings do favor the SGE, but I wouldn’t let that fool me—I’m expec­ting ano­ther clas­sic draw. This time, I real­ly think it’ll be 2–2.

Thank you!

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Chris­ti­an Kas­par-Bart­ke/­Get­ty Images